Not withstanding the upshot, I'm always wondering about the ill effect of technology on society. This is a painful example. Take it easy everyone!
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A Difficult Situation
51–60 of 485 posts
Re: A Difficult Situation
#52In the end, the consequences that resulted from how she reported the conduct put our business in danger. Our commitment to our 130 employees, their families, our community members and our more than 130,000 valued customers is our primary concern. Is he referring to the DDOS there? Or the user exodus?
The answer to both is "Yes". When their service is down, companies can't send their email, when companies can't send their email using SendGrid they look for alternatives...
It would be weird to fire someone over other people's criminal activity. That reason would be akin to what Eugene Volokh has referred to as the "heckler's veto": when you e.g. cancel a controversial speech because thuggish opponents have threatened to cause trouble (call in fake bomb threats, etc.), and you blame the speaker for having drawn the thuggish behavior, rather than the people actually engaged in criminal activity.
That said, they may have had legitimate reasons to fire her, but "people are illegally attacking us in order to get at her" is not one.
Re: A Difficult Situation
#53The situation wasn't that difficult, and Sendgrid's response was inappropriate. Welcome to the Corporate State where every problematic statement you make as an errorful human being prone to making mistakes will be used against you to preserve the corporate bottom line. An actual appropriate response from SendGrid and Play Haven would have been recognition that its employees are human's first, and all of us are subjec…
I think you are overlooking the fact (clearly elucidated by SendGrid) that her position as Developer Evangelist makes her the face of their company at conferences. Reaching out to her hundreds of Twitter followers to bring public shame to decent people runs perpendicular to the ethics of her company, her position, and (I hope) to the tech industry.
It is truly "ironic" - a word I shall borrow from you - that you attack SendGrid on the grounds of Free Speech, when in fact, the men in question in the incident were having a private conversation themselves.
Re: A Difficult Situation
#54I have little to no knowledge of laws in this area. However my gut tells me that Sendgrid is opening themselves up to a hell of a lawsuit. Can anyone who actually does know about such matters comment?
I doubt that. It is explicitly against the PyCon Code of Conduct to photograph attendees without their permission. Adria Richards did just that, on company time.
Re: A Difficult Situation
#55I have little to no knowledge of laws in this area. However my gut tells me that Sendgrid is opening themselves up to a hell of a lawsuit. Can anyone who actually does know about such matters comment?
Why is that? She lost them a lot of business, as he said she was not good PR, it seems pretty reasonable to fire her.
Re: A Difficult Situation
#56I think Adria could have avoided this if she apologized not for reporting the offenders to pycon, but for publicly identifying them. She was given the perfect opportunity for this when one of the offenders apologized for their own misstep in a hacker news thread that she herself commented in (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681).
Re: A Difficult Situation
#57I have little to no knowledge of laws in this area. However my gut tells me that Sendgrid is opening themselves up to a hell of a lawsuit. Can anyone who actually does know about such matters comment?
Why do you think this? Most employment in California (at least from my personal experience) is "at-will". Either party can terminate at any time with no notice and with no cause.
Also in this case the reasons have nothing to do with her gender, but more that she failed at her job at being a developer evangelist.
Re: A Difficult Situation
#58There was a chance to turn a two sided error into a stronger community. Now both trenches are dug even further.
Re: A Difficult Situation
#59[deleted]
Re: A Difficult Situation
#60In my opinion he's a coward that doesn't stand behind his employees and that goes for PlayHaven too. They've set a terrible precedent for the industry.
Well he didn't agree with what she said or how she handled it, why would he stand behind it? She brought them a lot of bad PR and a lot of trouble, he did what anyone would have.